Quartz City – Page 64 – by Chris Barrus

The Shady Dell

Years ago, I heard about this motel in Arizona that was made up of vintage Airstream trailers. Each one decked out with vintage decor, fixtures, everything… Later I learned that the motel was a RV park in Bisbee called The Shady Dell and in addition to the vintage Airstreams, there’s a 1947 bus (decked out in full Polynesian regalia), a vintage Chris Craft yacht, and to top it off – a 1950’s era prefab diner imported from Los Angeles.

Anyway, I was craving pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs from a vintage diner and Bisbee is a heck of a lot closer than New Jersey.

The Shady Dell itself is a total scream…

Adding to the atmosphere is the Shady Dell’s next door neighbor: Bisbee’s Evergreen Cemetery.

Shoot Me (Los Angeles signage March 2005 edition)

Some random signage from around Los Angeles the past couple of days…

The Grunion Gazette discovers Wi-Fi

Local Long Beach newspaper the Grunion Gazette realizes that it’s 2005 and discovers public-access Wi-Fi spots. Hilariously, they illustrate the article with a picture of Yours Truly (on the left) and an all-too appropriate quote:

Enh. “Other people” in coffee shops are overrated anyway.

Pasadena Freeway Rage

Not since the days of the much missed Highway 17 Page Of Shame has there been a commuting story as good as this. Best of all, the cops were there too!

She pulls directly next to me. Cell phone still on her left ear. Right hand comes across to give me the finger. At this point i have the camera already snapping shots. She’s so into giving me the finger, that she does not notice the CHP unit drop in behind her and light her up.

Scale solar systems

That ugly blob over there on the right is Jupiter. Well, Jupiter as I built it for school when I was eight in 1974. I found it recently in my mom’s house but couldn’t find the rest of the solar system, even another gas giant, to go with it. I distinctly remember getting the color scheme from the Pioneer 10 fly-by which I saw live on a broadcast at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Anyway, back at school I made a scale model solar system for class and while I couldn’t quite get the distance scale correct (Pluto would have been somewhere out in Kern County), I got the planet diameters down. Even got my photo in the local newspaper in their feature on my class. Some kids play with scale model trains, others build planets…

Couple years back I took a picture of part of the scale solar system in downtown Ithaca, New York.

What’s the point of all this? Some kids and scientists in the UK are building a scale solar system of their own (BBC news story). A little Googling turns up a meta-directory of scale solar systems.

My sorta DeLorean story

Lost in the fine print between the DeLorean car, the GTO, the cocaine, and movie time machines in yesterday’s obituaries for John DeLorean was that he was also responsible for the 1969 redesign of the Pontiac Grand Prix. I only mention this because my first car was a 1973 Grand Prix – couple generations removed from the cleaner ’69/’70 design, but still rather nice looking for the Detroit Iron of the day.

Meanwhile in New Jersey

Be nice or else…

In a state where one former governor once joked that the official bird was “the middle finger,” Assemblymen Jon M. Bramnick and Gordon Johnson think a few more random acts of kindness couldn’t hurt.

A resolution under consideration in the state Legislature is encouraging residents to join “a campaign toward civility, kindness and respect to all.”

Haven’t we seen this movie before? Have the slime levels in the Hudson been checked recently?

Polar Inertia

I’m shocked that I haven’t run across Polar Inertia before. Don’t think, just go there…

I especially recommend West Texas Bus Depots, North American Roads, and Airport Urbanism.

Algiers Hotel R.I.P.

While most of Los Angeles awaits the demolition of the Ambassador Hotel, I’m using up my tears for the Algiers Hotel in Las Vegas which I only just learned was demolished last September.

The Algiers was certainly not the nicest hotel in Vegas. Hell in terms of Las Vegas Strip culture, the Algiers was a scabby old drunk that still patronizes the same divey bar long after it’s been gentrified into hipsterville. No casino, no flashy show, no volcano – the Algiers was pure attitude that only comes from surviving for 50 years in the face of Steve Wynn and his ilk. I couldn’t quite think of ever staying there, but the bar in the Algiers was one of the great dive bars of Vegas. Dark, smoky, and with a slight hint of malfeasance, the Algiers’ bar was the motel’s entertainment: crabby drunks and a loud bartender that made the meanest drinks this side of a longshoreman’s dive.

Sigh… I wish I knew about the clearance sale. I would have driven out special to purchase one of the spectacularly ugly light fixtures.

The Thing about The Thing

NPR visits “The Thing” on I-10 in Arizona and gets into its history.